Saturday 30 May 2009

Useful Principles of Time Management

"You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again." ~ Benjamin Franklin

It is said that good time management can add two hours to a person's daily life! Below are three general principles that can assist you to better manage your time and increase your overall productivity.

The 80/20 rule - The 80/20 principle is also known as the Pareto principle. It is based on the ideas of an Italian economist called Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto was a French-Italian economist and philosopher who lived between 1848 and 1923. Initially his observations were based largely on the distribution of wealth.

In other words, he saw that 20 per cent of people owned 80 per cent of wealth. The remaining 80 per cent control only 20 per cent of the wealth. Over time it was realised that the same principle could be applied to many areas.

In time management this can be applied in a number of ways. One of these is to say that 20 per cent of what you do accounts for 80 per cent of your results.

Prime time - In line with the 80/20 rule is the idea of 'Prime Time'. It is found that not only do 20 per cent of your efforts account for 80 per cent of your results, but also that your best efforts occur in 20 per cent of the day.

In other words, most people are found to be somewhat inefficient for 80 per cent of their time. If someone is found to have a time in the day that is more productive than other times, this is when they should carry out their priority work and this is the time of the day they should protect themselves against distractions and diversions.

Don't try to change everything at once - Also in line with the 80/20 principle, it is best to focus on certain areas of their life, and set tasks that gradually help you to build from one success to another.

For example, if you are simply not sleeping well and your average day is a disaster due to exhaustion, then you know that a large result can be obtained by working on this one problem.

Similarly, if you spend 5 out of every 15 minutes looking for something at your office or workplace, then you reorganizing you work area significantly add time to your day. From each success you can go on to the next area, rather than adding to overload by trying to do too much at once.

If you want to make the best of your time, and improve your effectiveness, contact EPM Consulting at www.epmconsulting.eu today. But do it now, and remember . . . .tomorrow is not a day of the week!